Having the Mind of Christ

Out of the nature of selfless love emerges the mind of Christ. The moment we accept that we are called to lay down our lives for others, we are beginning to understand what it means to posses the mind of Christ. The spiritual woman appraises all things: she sees both the need and the answer and she is willing to be a bridge to complete redemption. The spiritual woman possesses discernment: she knows the activity of the human heart, its vulnerability to demonic manipulation, its inability to rise out of woundedness. Knowing God's grace towards herself, she pays the price to see freedom come to another.

Beloved, if your motive is love, if you are guided by hope, if you desire to possess Christlikeness, if you love humility and walk with an unoffendable heart, you will certainly find the thought-life of God. You are possessing the mind of Christ.

Lord Jesus, how much I want to think like You. Lord, I want to possess Your mind and be moved by Your heart. Grant, Master, that I would receive in a greater way the character and nature of the Holy Spirit, that I might know the thoughts of God toward the world around me. For Your glory I pray. Amen.

Mother Theresa: Motives

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work.
This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in -
that we do it to God, to Christ,
and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

More Catholic Seminary Teaching

The decisive factor to spiritual formation is Jesus Christ. More precisely, it is one’s habitually developed relationship with Christ: “Those who are to take on the likeness of Christ the priest by sacred ordination should form the habit of drawing close to him as friends in every detail of their lives” (PDV #45). Hence, the seminarian “should be taught to search for Jesus.” As his relationship with Jesus Christ grows, so will his love and commitment to the Church; as his faith grows, so will it illumine his attitudes until it eventually dominates his entire outlook on life. The discovery of God’s love and presence in human life will be attained through ongoing conversation of mind and heart such that the seminarian will become self-giving through freedom on the human level.

The search for Christ will focus on three areas: a faithful meditation on the word of God, active participation in the Church’s holy mysteries and the service of charity.

Knowledge of the word of God and familiarity with it are especially important for the prophetic ministry of the priest. The seminarian will learn to listen to him who speaks such that his vocation can be ‘discovered and understood, loved and followed, and one’s own mission carried out” (PDV #47). The most fundamental response to the word is prayer, which must be a key concern of spiritual formation.

A priest is not just a man who prays; he must be a man of prayer, a man transformed by constant prayer…

http://www.catholicpriest.com/fourcomponents.html

Gregory of Nazianzus Quotation

St. Gregory of Nazianzus writes, “We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently.”

Vatican Catechesis

Priests must be devoted to Prayer:

In a word we can say that, consecrated in the image of Christ, the priest must be a man of prayer like Christ himself.

The Gospel shows Jesus in prayer at every important moment of his mission. His public life, inaugurated at his baptism, began with prayer (Lk 3:21). Even in the more intense periods of teaching the crowds, he reserved long intervals for prayer (cf. Mk 1:35; Lk 5:16). Before choosing the Twelve he spent a night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12), and he prayed before asking his apostles for a profession of faith (cf. Lk 9:18). He prayed alone on the mountain after the miracle of the loaves (cf. Mt 14:23; Mk 6:46); he prayed before teaching his disciples to pray (cf. Lk 11:1); he prayed before the extraordinary revelation of the transfiguration, having ascended the mountain precisely to pray (cf. Lk 9:28); he prayed before performing some miracles (cf. Jn 11:41-42); he prayed at the Last Supper to entrust his future and that of his Church to the Father (cf. Jn 17). In Gethsemane he offered the Father the sorrowful prayer of his afflicted and almost horrified soul (cf. Mk 15:35-39 and parallel passages), and on the cross he made his last invocations, full of anguish (cf. Mt 27:46), but also of trustful abandon (cf. Lk 23:46). It could be said that Christ's whole mission was animated with prayer, from the beginning of his messianic ministry to the supreme priestly act: the sacrifice of the cross, which was made in prayer.

Those called to share Christ's mission and sacrifice find in his example the incentive to give prayer its rightful place in their lives, as the foundation, root and guarantee of holiness in action. Indeed, we learn from Jesus that a fruitful exercise of the priesthood is impossible without prayer, which protects the presbyter from the danger of neglecting the interior life for the sake of action and from the temptation of so throwing himself into work as to be lost in it.

Roman Catholic Priest's Reflection

…what I know about God will always be quite limited. But as a priest I’m committed to learning all I can about our God and then sharing it with others, especially through the sacraments.

To be a good priest starts first and foremost with that relationship with God—to learn and experience as much as possible, to love and be loved by a God who is both immanent—with us—and intimate and transcendent—beyond us—and all-knowing. It’s an ongoing and life-giving process with many facets, and it always begins with prayer.

Prayer is the anchor for any priest. His personal prayer is a time of solace and silence in God’s presence. It is also a time of words—words spoken in the manner that best nurtures that priest’s relationship. The crucial element is that the priest actually spends time in personal prayer. It might seem odd to make this point, but the constant demands of ministry and the many occasions for public prayer can easily cut in on one-on-one time with God.

Personal prayer always informs and enriches public prayer, and vice versa. For a diocesan priest, the ancient regimen of psalms and prayers in the Liturgy of Hours is primarily a private prayer. For priests who belong to a religious order, it is a prayer prayed with members of his community. The Liturgy of Hours is the prayer of the church, a linch-pin to other public prayers and liturgies, and it is essential for priests in developing a deeper relationship with God.

…To be a good priest you must make an effort to be a good homilist. This comes from the fruit of prayer—both private and public—and a commitment to work at it.

…A priest is never acting alone, never relying entirely on his own attributes, for God’s continuing miracle is to fill the world with grace by working through human hands.

“What does it take to be a good priest?” Father Jim Kent, O.F.M. Conv.

http://www.vocation-network.org/articles/read/40

Latin poem: Priestly identity

O Sacerdos, quid es tu?
Non est a te, quia de nihilo,
Non es ad te, quia mediator ad Deum,
Non es tibi, quia sponsus ecclesiae,
No es tui, quia servus omnium,
Non es tu, quia Dei minister,
Quid es ergo? Nihil et omnia,
O Sacerdos.

What are you, O priest?
You are not your own creation, because you come from nothing,
You do not exist to yourself alone, because you are an intercessor before God.
You do not exist for yourself alone, because you are married to the Church.
You do not belong to yourself, because you are the servant of all.
You are not just you, because you are God's minister.
What are you then? Nothing and everything, O Priest.

Evelyn Underhill: importance of a prayerful Priest!

I've changed her male language to female here:

… to become and continue a real woman of prayer, seems to me the first duty of a parish priest.

What is a real woman of prayer? She is one who deliberately wills and steadily desires that her intercourse with God and other souls shall be controlled and actuated at every point by God... one who has so far developed and educated her spiritual sense that her supernatural environment is more real and solid than her natural environment. A woman of prayer is not necessarily a person who says a number of offices or abounds in detailed intercessions; but she is a child of God who is and knows herself to be in the deeps of her soul attached to God and is wholly and entirely guided by the Creative Spirit in her prayer and her work. This is not merely a bit of pious language. It is a description…of the only real apostolic life. Every Christian starts with the chance of it; but only a few develop it. The laity distinguish in a moment the clergy who have it from the clergy who have it not: there is nothing you can do for God or for the souls of others which exceeds in importance the achievement of that spiritual temper and attitude.

An Anthology of the Love of God: from the writings of Evelyn Underhill, pp. 123-124

Prayer as Active and Passive

Formation prayer is both an active and passive process.
We are both pursuing God and being pursued by God.

Prayer as root of godliness

Prayer - secret, fervent, believing prayer - lies at the root of all personal godliness.
William Cary